Rethinking Stalinist History through the publication of Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2014)

The goal of the project implemented in June-October, 2014 was to publish the Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy D. Snyder in Georgian. The given book which was awarded a 2013 Hannah Arendt prize is a highly original treatment of the atrocities Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia committed in the territory between them — what are now the modern Baltic countries, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and a portion of Russia.

In the frameworks of this project, the Bloodlands was published in Georgian and numerous events throughout Georgia were held in order to empower ordinary Georgian citizens and stakeholders by engaging them with an unfamiliar interpretation of this period in Soviet history. In discussing the atrocities committed in the “bloodlands” by both Stalin and Hitler, readers will connect Hitler’s politically motivated killing as part of the same historical phenomenon as the violence perpetrated by Stalin. In a country where, according to a recent CRRC survey on Georgian attitudes toward Stalin (part of the 2012 Caucasus Barometer), 45 percent of the population holds a positive view of Stalin and 68 percent would characterize him as a “wise leader,” a book that both details the millions who died under his rule and which compares this violence to that of Nazi Germany, would spark a much needed reappraisal of Georgia’s infamous son.